The other day a friend of ours called. After I talked to him for a bit he made the comment, "I know you guys don't have an answering machine." We do have an answering machine so I asked why he thought that. It's because our machine is set to answer after six rings. He only ever lets a phone ring four or five times. That would explain why he never leaves messages.
Currently we are trying to sell a house. Phone numbers show up on our caller id without people leaving messages. Ray called one lady back and she said the machine never picked up. Most likely she only waited four or five rings.
Have people really become so impatient that they can't wait even 30 seconds for someone to answer the phone? I have our machine set at six rings so it gives me a few seconds longer to get to the phone since I am often delayed by babies. 30 seconds is hardly enough time to put the girls down and get to the other room to pick up the phone.
Maybe it's because my mom always told us to let the phone ring ten times (my parents don't have an answering machine). So I always do let it ring that long when I call them. It only takes one minute for the phone to ring ten times, making it about six seconds per ring. I don't find it to be unreasonable to expect people to wait 36 seconds to leave me a message. Maybe I'm not as impatient as I thought I was.
7 comments:
That is ridiculus that people can't wait. When I call Mom and Dad I sometimes even let it ring longer than a minute just in case they are outside and might hear the phone, just gives them plenty of time to answer.
I certainly understand your frustration-especially when you mention it takes you longer because of the babies. But I also think you have to give people the benefit of the doubt. Take me, for example. I had no idea there were answering machines that waited for 6 rings to answer. I thought 4 was pretty much standard. I, personally, hang up after 4 rings because I figure if the person IS at home, I don't want to annoy them by allowing the phone to continue ringing. I figure they have a perfectly good reason for not answering and so I hang up after 4 rings, 5 max. I have never considered that they may just have a 6 ring answering machine. Maybe now I will start waiting 6 rings to hang up, since apparently, 6 ring answering machines do in fact exist.
Of course, I don't have a home phone anymore and I try my darndest not to call anybody since I hate the phone, so maybe I won't have to run into this situation much :)
Our answering machine picks up after 6 rings, too. I didn't like our old one that picked up after 4 rings, because the answering machine always kicked on before I could get to the phone, and so then I had to apologize to the person on the phone, over my other voice that was talking on the answering machine, as I ran back to my bedroom to turn it off so I could hear what the person was saying. Embarrassing. I let the phone ring longer when I call people, too, because I just assume they're like me and might not hear it right away. I may be in a kids bedroom with them, or downstairs, or feeding a baby, or changing a diaper, or in the laundry room. Although, I have noticed that we don't get a whole lot of messages on this new machine. Hmmmm . . . Do people not know we have it, or just not want to talk to my machine?
I guess you didn't realize that 1) it's illegal to NOT have an answering machine, and 2) if you DO have an answering machine and you DARE have it set to 6 rings, be prepared to see the feds showing up at your door to arrest you. Just kidding. I, too, like Genny, didn't realize that phones could be set to different amounts of rings (that was said funny, sorry). That being said, it is retarded, in my opinion, that people would go to the lengths of letting you know how "inconvenienced" and "annoyed" they were that you either didn't have an answering machine or that you had it set to ring so many times. Maybe they didn't act annoyed to you (I would hope not), but in general, it bugs me when people go out of their way to inform someone of how they were inconvenienced. So many times, they exerted more effort to let you know they were bugged than the actual amount of "bugging" that happened, if that makes sense.
Unfortunately, I am the one who waits the six rings for the answering machine and then I hang up. I am terrible at talking on answering machines!!
This just made me laugh because I have too many times had the experience of dropping a crying child, tripping over the unfolded laundry, spilling the sippy cup I didn't finish putting the lid on, and taking a final leap and reaching for the phone (in slow motion with music playing in the background) TRYING to get to the phone before the person hung up. Drives me nuts!! Give me some time, people! :)
Hmmm ... I think it's because cell phones pick up faster when no one answers (for example, the first time I don't answer, it rings maybe six times. The next time someone calls it only rings four or so times. And then by the third time with no answer, it will only ring twice). This reminds me of when I was campaigning in Iowa for Mitt Romney. We had to make phone calls and I can remember several times where without thinking I let the phone ring and ring and ring for probably ten minutes straight because I wasn't paying attention. Hahaha. Oops. :)
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